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No Doubt in 1996

 

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Welcome To The Tragic Kingdom: No Doubt's Masterpiece Turns 25

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The ska-pop greats' sophomore record not only featured some of the most definitive songs of its era, but its visceral lyrics and innovative genre-bending would make a significant impact on the fabrics of pop and rock music at large
Yasmine Shemesh
GRAMMYs
Oct 10, 2020 - 6:47 am

In the spring of 1995, uncertainty hung heavy in the Southern California air for No Doubt, a spirited band of misfits from the Anaheim suburbs. Their bouncy, brassy 1992 self-titled debut had been ignored and their label, Interscope Records, didn’t really know what to do with them other than pass them to producer Matthew Wilder, of "Break My Stride" fame, for guidance. Eric Stefani, who co-founded the band in 1986 with his sister, Gwen, and classmate, John Spence, was growing more disillusioned with it all every day. The main songwriter and visionary, he wasn’t much for relinquishing creative control. And for a group who found inspiration in the Jamaican ska, new wave and punk of British two-tone bands like the Selecter and Madness, the Wilder paring felt like, as Gwen told Rolling Stone in 1997, "such an invasion, at first."

No Doubt took their frustration into their garage studio on Beacon Avenue and furiously recorded a sophomore effort over a weekend on their own watch. The Beacon Street Collection captured the raw energy that made the band so popular in Orange County’s ska and punk undergrounds and peers of like-minded groups such as Sublime—but, then, Eric left the band in late 1994. No Doubt self-released the album in March the following year. It was embraced more warmly than its predecessor and proved their worth to Interscope, who greenlit a studio follow-up. But without their former captain steering the ship, No Doubt was treading new water.

Read More: Got To Keep On Movin': How Matthew Wilder's '80s Deep Cut "Break My Stride" Broke TikTok

Stefani had already been writing songs of her own, trying make sense of the end of her eight-year relationship with the band’s bassist, Tony Kanal. Kanal and guitarist Tom Dumont picked up songwriting duties along the way, too. But it would be Stefani’s heartache and hopeful angst that would really set Tragic Kingdom on fire—and launch No Doubt into superstardom and Stefani as a pop culture luminary, first with the lead single, "Just A Girl." With sunny, swirling opening guitar riffs and Stefani, in her signature vocal quaver, belting about feeling under the thumb of protective parents and the misogynies of society, "Just A Girl" became one of the most important feminist anthems of the decade. Tragic Kingdom, released on October 10, 1995, also earned the band a substantial number of awards including GRAMMY nominations in 1997 and 1998. Producing seven singles over three years, the album not only featured some of the most definitive songs of its era, but its visceral lyrics and innovative genre-bending would make a significant impact on the fabrics of pop and rock music at large. 25 years later, the album endures both as a confessional pop masterpiece and beloved classic that continues to resonate deeply. 

With Eric at the helm, quirkiness was a defining quality of No Doubt’s sound. Though a bit scattered, his zany compositions carved out a fearless approach the band would continue to carry after he left—which worked in their favor, since the departure made space for the artistic idiosyncrasies of the other members to shine. Dumont’s technical dexterity, for example—the result of a varied background of playing in heavy metal bands and studying classical guitar theory in college. Fan-turned-drummer Adrian Young, with his feverish yet nuanced pummel executed in the vein of Rush's Neal Peart. Kanal, who had absorbed '80s rock from his pre-Angeleno childhood in England, played in his high school jazz band, and found profound inspiration in Prince. And Gwen, a self-proclaimed "ska chick" who loved The Sound of Music, old Hollywood glamour and the Police. While the group retained the madcap spirit that had always made them so much fun to listen to, this version of No Doubt was more structured than ever—a cohesiveness partly in credit to Wilder, to be sure, but they found their sweet spot within each other. The band’s amalgamation of influences and individual strengths created a fresh sound that was so distinct and yet so hard to define, which is what made it—and continues to make it—so brilliant. And it set them apart from the heavy broodiness of contemporaries like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Hole that then ruled the alternative mainstream.

The shift is heard immediately on "Spiderwebs," Tragic Kingdom’s opener, which combines a new wave-tinged melody with bubbly reggae bass licks and a mosh-inducing chorus. It transitions perfectly into the rapid-fire punk of "Excuse Me Mr.," a song about desperately vying for unrequited attention, the sonic blistering of which is similarly channeled in the angsty "Sixteen." Then, there's "Happy Now?," a guitar-driven rock track detailing a certain painful breakup with acerbic lyrics like "Now you must adhere / To your new career of liberation / You've been cast all by yourself / You're free at last." Hints of horn blast throughout the album adding a brightness to songs such as "Sunday Morning"—one of the Tragic Kingdom’s best, with ska and pop elements, ascending drums and a deliciously bitter Stefani who sneers, "Now you’re the parasite."

The consummate song about Kanal and Stefani's relationship, of course, is "Don't Speak." Originally, Dumont told Complex, Eric wrote most of it. Only after working on it together as a band was it elevated to a rock ballad with Spanish guitar, with Gwen rewording the lyrics to reflect what was happening in her life. It took on even more meaning as No Doubt was blowing up and Stefani began receiving significantly more attention than her bandmates—the simmering tension of which is played up in the song’s music video. The song’s popularity—and, to a larger extent, the album’s—made it challenging to keep revisiting the breakup each time they did press, Kanal said. But, he added, "The fact that we got through all that stuff and we persevered through all that is a real testament to our friendship. I think it’s also a testament to how much the band means to us. We didn’t let it break us up as a band, and we just kept going and it made us stronger."

Tragic Kingdom is widely considered a breakup album, and it is, but the heartbreak also extends to more than just Stefani and Kanal. The band faced so much tragedy in their formative years, starting with suicide of co-founder John Spence in 1987 when they were only a year old. Spence shared vocal duties with a then-bashful Stefani and was a charismatic frontman who did backflips on stage. Days before No Doubt were to perform at the Roxy Theatre, a gig they hoped would be their big break, he shot himself. The Roxy was announced as the devastated band’s final show. They reunited a month later because, Stefani told Interview, it’s what Spence would have wanted. The unreleased song, "Dear John," pays tribute to their friend.

And then there was Eric’s exit. While it set No Doubt on their course, it rattled their confidence emphatically. It was traumatic, Dumont said. "We were just a group of friends who were really tight, and we had our band for years. Our band just got rocked with this intense, personal stuff." And, Stefani admitted, it almost made them give up. "We were sitting there saying to ourselves, ‘O.K., we are 26. We’ve been doing this for eight years. Maybe we should finish up and get adult lives now.’ Then the record came out and people thought it was good, which was really weird, because we were always the dork band from Anaheim." "The Climb," a psychedelic slow burner that alludes to overcoming obstacles, is one of Eric’s two solo offerings to Tragic Kingdom—the other being the freaky title-track, which describes a dystopian Disneyland and Walt’s cryogenically frozen tears as dripping icicles—and has emerged as a fan-favorite over the years.

But while No Doubt’s early years may have been flooded with drama, plumbing the depths of it helped them find their voice. Collective agony cultivated the strength of their bond and dug into an honest narrative about navigating loss that is not only powerful, but universally relatable. We all experience pain. It’s an intrinsic part of the human experience. And we tend to relate to art that, even if ever so slightly, taps into our grief because it expresses it in a way that we perhaps exactly can’t. It hits a nerve. And that’s deeply comforting—which is arguably why Tragic Kingdom continues to endure in the powerful way that it does: yes, it’s poetic, gorgeously dynamic, and sounded fizzy and fresh against the band’s radio contemporaries. But it’s also a symbol of hope in the wake of tragedy.

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Madonna

Madonna in 2000

Photo: George Pimentel/WireImage

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Music Makes The People Come Together: 20 Years Of Madonna's 'Music'

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Released in 2000, the Queen of Pop's five-time GRAMMY-nominated album is the work of an artist who has plenty to say, but nothing to prove—a reminder of a less complicated time and a blueprint for our future
Zel McCarthy
GRAMMYs
Sep 19, 2020 - 7:55 am

In the year 2000, America was sharply divided. A new generation of singers had lip-synced and danced its way to the top of the charts and the front of the pop culture proscenium with material Auto-Tuned to Pro Tools perfection. The (mostly rock) music establishment loudly decried the new pop as artifice and asserted the integrity of music made with analog instruments.

At the time, assessing the validity of popular music loomed larger than the growing threat of MP3 downloads that would eventually upend the entire record industry. Madonna had been through these kinds of polemics before, herself a frequent subject of musical legitimacy debates. But nearly two decades into her career, she had seemed to quiet her most ardent critics. 

Her seventh studio album, 1998's Ray of Light, had been the best-reviewed record of her career thus far, earning five GRAMMY nominations and winning three, including Best Pop Album, in 1999. Along with a pair of soundtrack singles, the album had maintained Madonna's presence on radio into the summer of 2000. On MTV's "Total Request Live," her videos played between those from upstart stars half her age, many of whom would cite her as an inspiration. In a contentious cultural landscape, Madonna occupied the highly coveted overlapping space of critical credibility and popular viability. 

Ray of Light struck gold by embracing Björk- and Massive Attack-esque electronica, thanks largely to the work of the album's primary producer, William Orbit. However, as a genre, electronica had yet to live up to predictions that it would dominate the U.S. as it had Europe. In combination with Madonna's reputation for reinvention, this only drove expectations higher for how she would follow her latest career highpoint. 

"Music," the lead single and title track of her eighth studio album, struck the airwaves like an intergalactic robot in August 2000, heralding a new sound for Madonna and the arrival of 21st-century pop music. With its digitally modified instruments, arpeggiated synths and a chorus Madonna says was inspired by the crowd at a Sting concert, "Music" combined elements of electronic and analog to create an anthem of unity on the dance floor. The Jonas Åkerlund-directed music video—featuring a pre-Borat Sacha Baron Cohen as his character, Ali G—seemed to skewer the decadence of late-'90s hip-hop bling while also revelling in it. We see a pimp-suited Madonna getting into the groove, relishing a night at the strip club with her girls and fending off creeps like a boss, all filmed while she was five and a half months pregnant.

On the strength of its lead single, Music released in the U.S. on September 19, 2000, via Madonna's Maverick imprint under Warner Bros. and opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, her highest-charting album in over a decade. Although critics didn't gush over Music with quite the same enthusiasm as they had its predecessor, the album moved millions of physical copies in its first few weeks, eventually going on to garner triple-platinum certification in the U.S. It ultimately earned five total GRAMMY nominations, including Best Pop Vocal Album and Record Of The Year for "Music" in 2001 and Best Short Form Music Video for "Don't Tell Me" in 2002. (Former Maverick Records art director and designer Kevin Reagan, who designed the album, won for Best Recording Package in 2001.)

In an effort to introduce the Queen of Pop to a new generation of fans, the album's promo campaign combined the traditional (a terrestrial radio premiere, a Rolling Stone cover story) with the new (an AOL listening party/live chat, a livestreamed club performance) over a timeline that seems enviably long by today's standards. Comparisons to more junior pop artists on the charts and airwaves swirled around her, but Madonna avoided miring herself in the muck. 

Instead, for an exclusive performance at New York City's 3000-capacity Roseland Ballroom that November, Madonna took the stage wearing a Dolce & Gabbana-designed T-shirt emblazoned with the name Britney Spears. For her performance at MTV's European Music Awards later that month, she wore a similar shirt that said Kylie Minogue. "It's my celebration of other girls in pop music," she said backstage at the EMAs, praising the younger women before adding, somewhat cheekily, "I think they're the cutest."

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Such spontaneous statements of support and admiration are almost boringly common now, but in an era when pop music had been denied entry into the credibility club, the moment held more weight. Though the press loved to pit female pop stars against each other at the turn of the century as much as it does now, musically, there wasn't much rivalry between them. With Spears still steeped in the sounds of Swedish pop on Oops!… I Did It Again and Minogue diving into disco on Light Years, Madonna had crafted a sound of her own on Music. 

While Orbit returned for several tracks on the album, the majority of Music was co-helmed by the relatively unknown French producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï. Like his contemporaries in the French touch electronic scene (Daft Punk, Air, Rinôçérôse), Mirwais was unabashed in his affection for American music of the '70s, including the funk and R&B influences of house. Those influences, paired with his proficiency in production, worked well with Madonna's penchant for pop hooks, resulting in an LP whose sonic textures included space-age fills, guitar-washed in computerizing effects, and vocals that alternate between alien and intimate. 

Music's second track, the distorted and ravey fan favorite "Impressive Instant," is a high-BPM ode to a trippy first encounter that sounded then like nothing anyone had heard before—20 years later, it still does. On the opposite end of the spectrum, closing track "Gone" is a stark and straightforward crooner made glorious by the fortitude of Madonna's vocals, selectively layered with exacting control. 

As an album, Music is a masterclass in juxtaposition that disguises some of its strangest elements in familiarity. Where futuristic production might distract, it's moderated by traditional instrumentation. This plays out most noticeably on second single, "Don't Tell Me." It's hard to hear the track's opening guitar riff without thinking of the album's disco cowboy visual aesthetic come to life in the Jean-Baptiste Mondino-directed video. The record soundtracking the sparkly western shirts and synchronized line dancing is downright audacious in how it interweaves acoustic guitar—played by Madonna herself—with midtempo dance beats, cushioned by country strings, all building to a crescendo in the final chorus. "Don't Tell Me" so effortlessly realizes the misbegotten '90s vision of folktronica that it sounds just as fresh today as it did in 2000. 

As a mainstay of '90s soft rock radio, Madonna was no stranger to love songs. Given the magnitude of her celebrity, the details of her personal life were bound to color how listeners heard Music's more personal lyrics. Two decades later, the declarations of love on "I Deserve It," presumably intended for then-boyfriend, husband-to-be Guy Ritchie, feel just as authentic now, long after their relationship ended. In contrast to the frequent unironic materialism expressed by today's celebrity pop stars, Music excelled at showing the former "Material Girl" in self-reflection. Its genius is how that introspection comes across as relatable and real, even when sung to highly synthesized beats by one of the biggest stars in the world.

For all its ebullience, at only 10 tracks and clocking in just under 45 minutes, Music is a model of restraint. It's the work of an artist who has plenty to say, but nothing to prove. And while her status as an innovator is deserved, Music shows how Madonna is an even better interpreter, fluent in musical languages across genres and capable of hewing them to her vision. 

Although Music faces forward to the new century, its unencumbered joyfulness is a bittersweet vestige of the uncomplicated '90s. When she wielded her axe on stage for the kickoff of the Drowned World Tour in June 2001, it was a subtle statement of sorts, expressing Madonna's own defiance of music rules: She could be both rock and pop, analog and digital, acoustic and electronic. But by the time that tour wrapped in Los Angeles on September 15, 2001, nobody cared about that debate anymore.

While she had deftly eschewed the petty cultural battles between genres and generations, the world had changed dramatically in the first year since the release of Music. The message would be muddled in years to come, but in that moment, Madonna was uniquely prepared to be a voice for unity with one simple yet inarguable statement: Music makes the people come together.

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Craig David on the set of his "Fill Me In" music video in 2000

Craig David on the set of his "Fill Me In" music video in 2000

Photo: Naki/Redferns

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Can You Fill Me In: 20 Years Of Craig David's 'Born To Do It'

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Released two decades ago this month in his native U.K., Craig David's breakout debut album marked the definitive moment when U.K. garage went supernova and transformed the singer from a supporting player into a GRAMMY-nominated R&B star
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Aug 27, 2020 - 7:46 am

In March 2001, 19-year-old Craig David was on top of the world. The singer-songwriter's debut full-length, Born To Do It, entered the U.K. albums chart at No. 1 on the week of its August 2000 release. By the new year, he had arena shows booked across the U.K. At the beginning of the month, David played for a sold-out crowd at London's prestigious Wembley Stadium, while camera crews shot footage for a future concert film. As coming-out parties go, it was the stuff of dreams. 

On the road that spring, David spoke to the Los Angeles Times about his hopes of cracking America. (He also discussed the careful upkeep of his already-famous beard, seen on the cover of Born To Do It: "It takes about 30 minutes to perfect the symmetry.") While confident in his talents, David knew U.S. success was no sure thing: "I'm at square one." 

What he could offer new ears, though, was the distinctly British sound of U.K. garage. The genre, which evolved out of the U.S. garage scene led by DJ-producers like Todd Edwards and Mood II Swing, is also referred to as 2-step garage or simply 2-step. (Genre sticklers might quibble, but the terms are often used interchangeably to describe the same sound.) At the time, David gave the Los Angeles Times a neat explainer on the genre that launched him. "It's a hybrid of R&B; and house-garage where you take the bass drum off the second and fourth beats of the bar," he said. "That gives a unique skipping feel." 

After bubbling up in grimy London clubs via DJs like MJ Cole and DJ EZ, the genre went mainstream in the Y2K era. In May 1999, Shanks & Bigfoot's unassuming U.K. garage tune, "Sweet Like Chocolate," hit No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart. That November, U.K. garage duo Artful Dodger released "Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)," featuring a then-little-known Craig David on vocals. The single fused all the hallmarks of garage—complete with a twitchy beat, breaking glass sound effects and a DJ "backspin"—with the crossover appeal of David's honeyed vocals. "Re-Rewind" reached No. 2 on the charts, officially marking the arrival of the genre's new star.

For David, Born To Do It was the natural next step after the breakout success of "Re-Rewind," but he had no intention of making a pure U.K. garage record. The album, released 20 years ago this month, captures an artist as steeped in U.S. R&B and pop as the "unique skipping feel" taking over U.K. dance floors. Born To Do It also marked the definitive moment when U.K. garage went supernova, a double impact that saw the underground British genre and its bright young ambassador gain enough mass appeal to crack the U.S. 

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David met Mark Hill and Pete Devereux, aka Artful Dodger, in their shared hometown of Southampton on England's south coast. After watching the teenager DJ at a local club, the duo invited David to their modest studio the next day. David performed on three tracks on Artful Dodger's debut album, It's All About The Stragglers (2000), including "Re-Rewind." The guest-heavy LP, which also featured British vocalists Michelle Escoffery, Romina Johnson and Lifford, applied pop sheen to a U.K. garage template. (With only a few of its tracks available on streaming services, It's All About The Stragglers is now something of a rare gem.)

Mark Hill recognized that David's ambitions went beyond guest spots. "We couldn't afford to pay him for the vocals [on Stragglers] so we just offered him studio time as well and I could help to produce his stuff … " Hill recalled in an interview with Soul Culture. Born To Do It evolved organically from that laidback arrangement. Without any outside input or label pressure, Hill and David finished the album before "Re-Rewind" blew up in the clubs. After that boost, the pair went back to record one more track that could "bridge the gap," as Hill put it to Soul Culture, between the Artful Dodger sound and the Craig David solo project. That late addition to the track list was called "Fill Me In." 

Released ahead of the album in April 2000, "Fill Me In" debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart. Sonically, its stuttering drums and lush string samples would've been at home on It's All About The Stragglers. However, its songwriting highlighted David's specific touch, with lyrics that shift perspective from the teenagers creeping around to the watchful parents. Buoyed by the success of "Fill Me In" and its follow-up single, "7 Days," released that July, Born To Do It was a lock to top the U.K. albums chart. 

With Wembley conquered, David set his sights more keenly on the U.S. Atlantic Records released Born To Do It stateside in 2001, peaking at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 chart. The singer toured North America with an eight-piece band in early 2002, then closed his trip that February at the GRAMMYs, where "Fill Me In" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. While David didn't win, he shared the category with his boyhood hero, Michael Jackson who was nominated that year for "You Rock My World." It was another pinch-yourself moment for the striver from Southampton. "It's all been very surreal," David told Billboard in 2001. "When I do interviews, I sometimes talk in the third person, like I'm watching this other artist grow." 

After the ice-breaker of "Fill Me In," Born To Do It soon strays from the U.K. garage mold. In addition to Michael Jackson, David grew up listening to his mom's favorites like Terence Trent D'Arby, Stevie Wonder and The Osmonds. Later, he discovered the new school of '90s R&B from across the Atlantic. By 19, he was hyperliterate about the music that shaped him. In his concert film, Off The Hook...Live At Wembley (2001), David excitedly recounts the story of an out-of-the-blue call from rap mogul Sean Combs, known then as Puff Daddy. "This guy is a pioneer in taking old samples and bringing them into contemporary music, from [The Notorious] B.I.G. to 112 to Faith Evans," he marvels to the camera. "And this guy is on the phone telling me he likes 'Fill Me In.'" 

That easy familiarity with the history of U.S. R&B and pop runs throughout Born To Do It. On "Rendezvous" and "Last Night," David strikes a silky loverman tone that recalls the likes of Usher and Ginuwine. Warm Spanish guitar carries "7 Days," which earned David his second GRAMMY nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2003. Its catchy, humble-bragging chorus ("I met this girl on Monday / Took her for a drink on Tuesday") later went on to launch a million memes. "Time To Party" is a peppy, innocent celebration of Friday nights at the club, while "Follow Me" slows things right down in a D'Angelo-like bedroom jam. Then there's "Bootyman," which somehow riffs on the nursery rhyme "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" and "The Candy Man" song from Willy Wonka, while also spelling out the URL "www.CD.com" in full.

For all of David's smoothness, Born To Do It is more suggestive than explicit, painting David as the R&B casanova you could bring home to mom. Just as "Fill Me In" considered the parents' perspective, "Can't Be Messin' Around" is about staying faithful to a girlfriend despite the come-ons of an interloper "wanting me to hold her oh so tightly." Late album highlight "You Know What" then balances the libido and lovestruck yearning as David croons about the one that got away.  

David released his second album, Slicker Than Your Average, in November 2002. Unlike the boyish ease of Born To Do It, the follow-up opens with a score-settling title track. "Ever since I first stepped up / They thought I wasn't good enough," David sings. The song lists dings made against the singer—he's too "squeaky clean," he's got nothing to say, he's a one-hit wonder—then dismisses them with pointed swagger. 

Despite his usually sunny outlook, David chafed against the barbs that came with fame. In 2002, the U.K. sketch show "Bo' Selecta!" turned the singer into a recurring caricature, destining him to years of punchlines. (The show's creator, Leigh Francis, recently apologized for his insensitive portrayal of Black celebrities.) After his 2010 Motown covers album, Signed Sealed Delivered, David relocated to Miami for a fresh start. He got shredded, built a loyal Instagram following and DJed for friends at his multimillion-dollar penthouse. Life was good, but he wasn't making music. 

David eventually returned to the U.K. to work on new songs alongside producer White N3rd and others. After a widely shared cameo on Kurupt FM's BBC Radio 1 takeover, David released Following My Intuition in 2016, his first album in six years. Coming full circle from Born To Do It, the LP hit No. 1 in the U.K. Just like that, Craig David was back in the game. 

Ever since that surprise call from Puffy, Born To Do It keeps finding new believers throughout the decades. On his 2007 mixtape cut "Closer," Drake rapped about racing through back streets "on my Craig David sh*t." Ed Sheeran and Disclosure, who grew up bumping Born To Do It on CD, helped encourage Artful Dodger, now known as Original Dodger for legal reasons, to return to production in 2017. Earlier this year, R&B superstar Khalid tapped David for "hidden ad-libs" on his late-night slow burner, "Eleven."

As for the man himself, he's still proud of the staying power of Born To Do It. But as his Instafamous "NOW" wristwatch makes clear, Craig David doesn't dwell in the past. If you're born to do something, the best thing is to keep doing it. 

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Bruce Springsteen in 1975

 

Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns

 
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It's The One: 45 Years Of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born To Run'

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The Boss' third effort brought new levels of poetic phrasing, symphonic instrumentation and heartfelt slice-of-life narratives to heartland rock, leading many to deem it one of the greatest albums of all time
Jordan Blum
GRAMMYs
Aug 21, 2020 - 6:31 am

With their first two LPs—Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, both from 1973—Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band cemented themselves as masters of both contemplative singer/songwriter elegance and triumphant orchestral rowdiness. Despite the mostly positive critical praise they garnered, however, neither record reaped the financial success and mainstream devotion the group deserved. Understandably, this led to a lot of internal and external frustrations and doubts, so all parties involved knew that—as the saying goes—the third time had to be the charm.

Luckily, 1975's Born to Run proved to be precisely that, launching Springsteen and company into the hearts and minds of virtually the entire world. All of its songs became beloved radio/concert/pop culture staples—thanks in part to a $250,000 marketing campaign by Columbia Records—and it ended up not only reaching the #3 spot on the Billboard 200, but earning praise from Rolling Stone, the New York Times and The Village Voice. Since then, its ability to bring new levels of poetic phrasing, symphonic instrumentation and heartfelt slice-of-life narratives (regarding blue-collar struggles, youthful romantic idealism and urban rebellion) to heartland rock has led many to deem it one of the greatest albums of all time.

Given the immense pressure everyone felt for Born to Run to be a hit, it's no surprise that it took the band 14 months to complete (with almost half of that time spent just on its iconic title track). It would be the last album co-produced by Mike Appel, as well as the first co-produced by music critic turned manager Jon Landau (who, in 1974, famously stated that Springsteen was the future of rock and roll in the midst of others aptly, if reductively, calling him the "new" or "next" Bob Dylan). Many of the same musicians stayed on, with the most significant additions being drummer Max Weinberg, pianist Roy Bittan, and guitarist/arranger Steven Van Zandt (who'd played with Springsteen in prior bands and got the gig after doing the horn arrangements for "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out").

Together, they created a succinct yet exploratory sequence whose Phil Spector-esque "wall of sound" approach built upon everything its two predecessors did so exceptionally (humble yet piercing odes like "Lost in the Flood" and full-bodied celebrations like "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"). That achievement, coupled with a more established conceptual throughline involving separate but similar characters existing around the same places and striving similar types of freedom, makes it clear why Born to Run is still so revered and idiosyncratic.

Each of its eight songs feels like a cinematic musical adaption of a resonant short story, and Springsteen designed each side to begin hopefully and end sorrowfully. Case in point: "Thunder Road," an exhilarating opener in which the unnamed speaker makes a final plea to his girlfriend, Mary, to run away with him. The instantly comforting blend of Springsteen's harmonica and Bittan's piano makes it seem like the story is set in a Steinbeck novel, and Springsteen’s backhanded compliment—"You ain’t a beauty / But hey, you're alright"—actually conjures Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130" in its blunt but realistic testament to authentic attraction. Obviously, its robust and catchy evolution is mesmerizing, foreshadowing the motif of invigorating better life daydreaming that spans the whole album (especially the title track).

Afterward, the origin of the E Street Band is explored in the sleekly nuanced, intricate, and fun—though also subtly mournful—"Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," which evokes the rock 'n’'roll vibe of Springsteen's sophomore effort. In contrast, "Night" recalls the poignant urgency of his debut collection, with its tale of a disheartened blue-collar worker seeking the nighttime joys of drag racing and female companionship resulting in one of Springsteen's most infectiously encouraging choruses. Then, "Backstreets" concludes Side One as a downer, with Bittan's pianowork hinting at the measured misfortune he'd bring to "Jungleland." Springsteen's reflection on the downfall of a plutonic friendship with a woman named Terry is full of coarse, almost inebriated wildness; meanwhile, the band punctuates each emotion with luscious accompaniment (including an imperfect yet earnest guitar solo).

Of course, Side Two explodes with “Born to Run,” which connects to “Thunder Road” not only in its exuberance, but even in its melodies and sentiments. Interestingly, it’s the only track that Weinberg and Bittan didn’t play on since it was recorded before drummer Earnest Carter and pianist David Sancious left the band. Every element is hypnotic, blissful, and legendary; from its sparkly timbres and wholly impassioned serenading, to saxophonist Clarence Clemons' solo and the subsequent deceptively complex breakdown, "Born to Run" is pretty much perfect.  

Luckily, the LP maintains that magic, with the dynamic yet relatively straightforward "She's the One" exposing an irresistible femme fatal before the penultimate "Meeting Across the River" acts as a decorative and lowkey tale of a low-level criminal unsuccessfully going for one last score. Cleverly, it also moves us from New Jersey to New York, where the record's closing masterpiece, "Jungleland," takes place. Combining Dylan-esque ponderings with early Chicago-esque arrangements, its like Springsteen's three-act take on West Side Story. It moves from a gorgeously intense chronicle of gang violence to a devastatingly serene aftermath, wherein bittersweet tapestries and appropriately timed escalations guide Springsteen’s wise but disenfranchised commentary. It’s incredibly tasteful and believable, with the line “And the poets down here / Don't write nothing at all / They just stand back and let it all be” standing out as particularly profound and hard-hitting.

From the huge concerts that surrounded it, to the multitude of album cover parodies/homages and industry honors that followed, Born to Run is rightly considered a benchmark for its creator, decade and genre overall. Expectedly, its winning formula inspired an even more mature and downtrodden follow-up, 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, as well as the aesthetics of countless proteges. It set new standards for how lyrical, multifaceted, and thematic rock music could be, and although it's nearly half a century old, it truly hasn't aged a day.       

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Björk in The Netherlands in 1995

Björk in The Netherlands in 1995

Photo: Michel Linssen/Redferns

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'Post' at 25: How Björk Brought Her Ageless Sophomore Album To Life

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Released in June 1995, 'Post' remains a kinetic and exhilarating reflection of the experimental pop artist's London years
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Jul 12, 2020 - 3:00 am

The name Björk conjures some well-worn images. She's the otherworldly artist whose album rollouts resemble large-scale art projects. She's the avant-garde fashion maven who smiled serenely in the "swan dress" at the 2001 Oscars. And yes, she's the eternal kook selling a box set of 14 handmade bird-call flutes to complement her 2017 album, Utopia. 

But there's a relatable image often missed in all the mythmaking: Björk in her late-20s, a wide-eyed new arrival in London, still at the grimy nightclub when the lights come on. 

Born Björk Guðmundsdóttir, the singer moved from her native Iceland to London in the early '90s. Single in the big city with a young son, Sindri, the musician was eager for new experiences. London's sound clash of electronic music promised endless possibilities. 

Björk went headlong into the nighttime world of the city, sampling jungle, drum & bass, house and techno. Not all of it connected. "Ninety-five percent of the dance music you hear today is crap," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "It's only that experimental five percent that I'm into — the records that get played in clubs after seven o'clock in the morning, when the DJs are playing stuff for themselves, rather than trying to please people." 

Gradually, Björk met her people. She found kindred spirits in Graham Massey, founding member of Manchester acid house innovators 808 State, and Nellee Hooper, a sound system veteran known for his work with Soul II Soul. Out of this creative awakening came Björk's Debut, in 1993, and its astonishing follow-up, Post, which turned 25 this June. 

In her formative years, Björk played in rock bands, but she was never a rock loyalist. Growing up in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík, she learned the country's folk songs from her grandmother. After her parents divorced early in her life, Björk moved between the domains of her straight-laced electrician father and free-spirited activist mother. 

In spite of splitting her time between parents, she was always surrounded by music. Her mother couldn't afford an oboe, so Björk learned the flute instead. On the long walks to and from school, she honed her remarkable singing voice. She released an album at 11 years old and found success in the Icelandic alt-rock group, The Sugarcubes. (Her former husband and father to her son, Sindri, was the band's guitarist.)

But Björk was unfulfilled, and 808 State's Graham Massey represented a new path. On Björk's request, the pair met in London to discuss beats. She liked the uncommercial approach to electronic music he’d honed in Manchester’s acid house scene; he was floored by her spine-tingling voice. Björk had arrangements for two songs, "Army Of Me" and "The Modern Things," that needed some edge. They finished "Army Of Me" in an afternoon, with Björk tinkering on a pocket sequencer while Massey perfected a giant bass riff. (Meanwhile, Björk appeared as a vocalist on 808 State's 1991 album, ex:el, and brought the band to Reykjavík to play the songs live.)

Björk also found a creative groove with Nellee Hooper, a former member of the Bristol DJ collective The Wild Bunch turned GRAMMY-winning superproducer for the likes of U2, Sinead O'Connor and Gwen Stefani, among others. Björk and Hooper shared a vision for a complete concept, which would later become her aptly titled 1993 debut album, Debut. (The Massey-assisted "Army Of Me" and "The Modern Things" were shelved for later use.) Produced by Björk and Hooper alone, Debut cleanly broke ties with the singer's rock past and instead welcomed trip-hop, house and synth-pop into her sound.

In the afterglow of Debut, Björk went deeper into London club culture. She wanted her next album to reflect the restless pulse and possibilities of her newly adopted home. "Most acts were putting out seven-inches with throwaway lyrics like, 'Ooh, baby, baby,'" Massey told Paper Magazine in 1997. "But Björk took that culture and made an album with poetic lyrics. It blew everyone away. She never tried to fit in with any electronic movement, she just took the ideas and got personal with it." 

That "poetic" album was Post. On its cover, Björk looks out from a heightened Piccadilly Circus in London's West End. Her jacket, designed by art world favorite Hussein Chalayan, resembles a U.K. Airmail envelope. (Björk, a frequent shopper at London's acid-house-inspired fashion store Sign Of The Times, already had designer cred.) 

On nights out, Björk had got to know Hooper's friends, including Massive Attack collaborator Tricky and Scottish producer Howie B. With input from her nocturnal cohort, Björk was determined to make Post much more riotous than Debut. 

Björk left the hustle of London to begin work on Post at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. The stories from those sessions are pure, uncut Björk excess. She used extra-long leads on her microphone and headphones to record at the ocean's edge. She sang "Cover Me" in a cave full of bats. On a side trip to Iceland, she swam in hot springs and admired glaciers with Tricky. (The pair briefly dated, but as Tricky put it bluntly to self-titled years later, "I wasn't a good boyfriend.") 

Back in London, Björk continued to hone Post, reaching for a balance between organic sounds and machine-made elements. In the final stretch, she coaxed Brazilian composer Eumir Deodato from semi-retirement to help fill out the sound. At last, Post was ready for the world. 

Albums often open with something moody and instrumental to set the tone. Post is not that kind of album. From the first moment, "Army Of Me" is all crunching propulsion, its shoulder-shaking lyrics sparked by Björk's sometimes-wayward younger brother. ("It's sort of a 'big sister telling little brother off' song," she told Stereogum in 2008.) 

From the jump, Post refuses to sit still. No two tracks can be easily grouped. "Hyperballad" is somehow a few songs in one five-minute package: equal parts acid house and Deodato's swelling strings, with a virtuoso vocal performance that combines innocent wonder and furious catharsis. 

There's no greater example of the album's tonal shifts than "It's Oh So Quiet" into "Enjoy." The former became the album’s biggest hit—its visual was nominated for Best Music Video, Short Form at the 1996 GRAMMYs, alongside a Best Alternative Music Performance nod for Post. But awards glory was never in the plan. "It was the last song we did,” Björk told Stereogum of "It's Oh So Quiet." "Just to make absolutely certain the album would be as schizophrenic as possible."

All these years later, "It's Oh So Quiet" remains an uninhibited thrill. While reverent to the 1951 version by Betty Hutton, itself a powerhouse, the song's ecstatic Björk-ness cuts through the throwback big-band sound, building from a whisper to gale-force theatrics. 

"Enjoy" then switches the setting from wartime revue to Bristol basement club. Created with Tricky—who released his masterful debut album, Maxinquaye, in the same year—"Enjoy" is scuffed and oppressive in the best way. In short: This ain't a show tune. 

On "Isobel," written with Icelandic poet Sjón, Björk reached for, as she later told Stereogum, a "heightened mythical state." The song sounds like scaling a glacier and singing to the stars. But Post never lets you pin Björk as an ethereal, unknowable pixie. She also does "normal people" things, like getting too drunk and staying out until sunrise. (Hungover Björk interviews were a theme of the mid-'90s. "I come from a country where from the age of 15 you drink one liter of vodka every Friday straight from the bottle," she told SPIN in 1997.)

She also knows a messy breakup as well as anyone. So from the astral plane of "Isobel" we go to "Possibly Maybe," a lovelorn, but still wry slowburner. You picture it sung late at night in a London apartment, far from the warmth of the Bahamas. 

"I Miss You," the final single released from Post, is the synthesis of all its wild instincts. There's so much here: horns, relentless percussion, a skittering, curving beat and Björk in blistering form. But the excess works. "Cover Me" and then "Headphones," written as an ode to Graham Massey's mixtapes, provide the album's gentle comedown. By the hushed final moments of Björk singing about sleep, you forget how furiously Post began. 

It's hard to pinpoint the exact influence of Björk's Post over the past 25 years. Forever on the move, the 15-time GRAMMY nominee has never been defined by one album alone. 

After a nightmarish 1996, which included a scuffle with a journalist and a bomb threat from a stalker, Björk decamped to Spain to record a follow-up to Post. Released in 1997, the brilliant Homogenic was more unified and consciously Icelandic than its predecessors. 

Homogenic set a precedent for an artistic reinvention by the singer every few years. As a result, other artists tend to credit the totality of Björk's output, rather than a single album, as inspirational. Most avoid her name at all: Citing a talent as vast and singular as Björk can only invite unfair comparisons. 

Over the decades since Post, Björk has made a habit of working with artists she's inspired. "That's the good thing with being so obsessed with music," she told the Evening Standard in 2016, "you've always got other nerds who are obsessing, too. It's kind of ageless." 

In recent years, those collaborators have included experimental electronic producers The Haxan Cloak and Arca as well as art-pop original ANOHNI. Throughout her many creative partnerships, Björk has battled sexist notions of authorship. "It's always like I'm this esoteric creature; that I just turn up and sing and go home," she vented to the Evening Standard. 

Contemporary singer-songwriters Jenny Hval and Mitski openly worship Björk, both jumping at the chance to interview their hero for a Dazed feature in 2017. Other parallels can be reductive. Shapeshifting singer FKA twigs, for one, is often cited as Björk-like. While the pair share a collaborator in music video visionary Andrew Thomas Huang, the comparison is a too-easy catch-all for women skirting traditional pop. 

In the 25 years since its release, Post has come to represent something wider than Björk's specific viewpoint. It's the best possible outcome of a timeless conceit: the transplant intoxicated by a new city, channeling their experiences and anxieties into art. In an era when cities are siloed and flights are grounded, Post feels impossibly romantic. 

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